Press
Release

STATEMENT
BY FBI DIRECTOR ROBERT S. MUELLER REGARDING THE INSPECTOR
GENERAL'S REPORT ON THE FBI'S HANDLING OF MCVEIGH DOCUMENTS:

We commend the Inspector
General and his staff for a thorough, objective and
independent examination of the issues. The resulting
recommendations are constructive and we appreciated
the opportunity to cooperate in this endeavor. For some
time, we have been making major changes that both implement
the recommendations, address the cultural and training
issues inherent in a new way of doing business, and
address the larger issue of records management as a
priority core function.

While we are taking specific
actions to address each concern raised by the Inspector
general, a number of significant steps are well underway
to overhaul our Bureau-wide records management capabilities,
to increase accountability for compliance with established
records procedures, and to put in place the training
and skill sets necessary to bring about full employee
"buy in" to a paperless environment. We very
much appreciate the support and funding Congress has
given to these crucial initiatives. For example:

* We have restructured
organizationally to recognize that the creation, maintenance,
use and dissemination of our records is a core function
that must be fully supported by management as a priority.
This has not been the case in past years. Our culture
must be committed to automation and our leadership and
training must be unequivocally in support of this new
environment. To do this:

* We created a Records
Management Division to ensure executive direction and
full-time over-sight over all records policy and functions,
consolidating all records operations to ensure consistency,
thoroughness and accountability.

* A professional records
management expert, Mr. William Hooton, has been hired
from the private sector to run the office. He has been
charged with modernizing our enterprise-wide records
systems and developing comprehensive, enforceable policies
and procedures to ensure records integrity. He also
is charged with putting in place those quality control
mechanisms that will detect anomalies and problems early
on. It is critical that we manage information, not just
the systems that support our records.

* Congress has funded
and we are implementing extensive agency-wide training
aimed squarely at evolving our culture to one that exploits
technology in our everyday way of doing business. Leadership
for this will come from the top.

* We have retrained every
employee on proper document production, maintenance
and retrieval and the importance of records management
as a core function.

* Basic to any modern
system of records is a modern information technology
system, and modernization of our information technology
is one of our top priorities. We are making sustained
progress in this area. Congress has approved funding
for the FBI to upgrade technologies and infrastructure
for organizing, accessing, analyzing and sharing information
throughout the FBI and beyond. Improvements which are
currently underway include:

* Replacing the now antiquated
Automated Case System in favor of a multimedia and near
paperless "virtual case file" with significant
improvements in capabilities that greatly reduce the
possibility that future documents will be misfiled,
lost or otherwise failed to be produced. The new system
will dramatically decrease the potential for human error
both by automatically doing many functions now done
by manual intervention and by substantially reducing
the number of opportunities for problems to occur that
are inherent in our current systems.

* This new case file document
management system, designed with substantial input from
street agents, will be of huge benefit by greatly simplifying
the records creation and maintenance processes, being
user friendly, and by allowing us to manage "leads"
far more effectively.

* The FBI's computer network
is being completely revitalized to provide a "data
warehousing" collaborative environment instead
of application "stove pipes." The creation
of "data warehouses" and ample supporting
networks provide easier and more robust access to and
sharing of information and results in integrated databases.
The need for ad hoc crisis software applications will
be eliminated.

* Private sector support to allow commercial software
and professional scanning, indexing and storage of documents
to move us rapidly out of the paper environment that
was so vexing in the OKBOMB situation.

Sound records management
and document accountability are at the heart of the
FBI's ability to support investigations and prosecutions
with information integrity. There can be no doubt about
the accuracy, completeness and proper disclosure of
the records we compile during our investigations and
used by prosecutors in support of prosecutions. The
ability to maintain, access and retrieve documents is
critical to our mission and equally critical to our
ability to protect the rights of those charged with
crimes. It also is fundamental to robust analytical
and information sharing capacities, both functions that
we are rapidly enhancing. In short, records management
and integrity are core functions that demand the same
level attention and accountability as any function we
undertake. It must be a part of our culture.

Finally, although his
exhaustive investigation found no evidence of any intentional
effort to withhold information from defense counsel,
the Inspector General's report also criticizes the actions
of certain FBI personnel. We are reviewing these criticisms
and will quickly move to take any appropriate disciplinary
actions.